


Sole Survivor

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Despair, Foot torture, Gen, Mostly Hurt/Tiny Comfort, Non-Sexual Slavery, Severe Foot Injuries, Stepping on a Fishhook, graphic depictions of pain, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 16:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13551207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Because the soles of your feet are extremely vulnerable to pain. Also, Obi-Wan is beautiful when in torment. Also, Anakin angst. Also, Obi-Wan powering through unspeakable pain. That's all the "why" I need.





	Sole Survivor

 

He had to be trailing bloody footprints.

Obi-Wan focused his eyes on the whip-scarred shoulder blades of the man walking before him, and kept taking steps.

The long chain to his left that connected to the wrists bound before each slave in the line stretched farther forward and so much farther backward.

He couldn't see Anakin.

His poor little Anakin, nightmares of the past flooding his eyes as they yanked his wrists together, as they  _forced_ him into line, two people up from Obi-Wan.

_And I couldn't stop them._

He took another step.  _Couldn't_ let it be the one that gave way.

He had to survive this. For his ten-year-old. For the memory of Qui-Gon Jinn, who would never forgive him for giving up. For Satine, a thousand planets away and without knowledge he was in danger. For Yoda, because the old one had lost too many loved ones in nine hundred years when the average lifespan of his Padawans and friends was under a century.

The terrain shifted from flat stone to gravel.

He only realized it once he stepped down.

A ragged gasp tore from his lips as he collapsed, his arms yanking up as the chain only gave way a little, jolting the slaves before and behind towards him as he hit the ground.

The column lurched to a halt as Obi-Wan fought to stay conscious.

It somehow hurt worse  _now_ than when they'd beaten the soles of his feet to keep him in line.

To keep Anakin in line.

Obi-Wan heard a hoarse cry, realized it was his own. He peered at his bare feet, his hazy vision telling him little, but the agony explaining all too clearly the gravel buried in thick cuts that had needed stitches yesterday.

He clawed at the ground, struggling to stand again. He couldn't let them see he'd fallen, couldn't—

A shadow fell across his dehydrated form.

Obi-Wan swallowed, staring at the man's boots. He gathered his feet under him, breath escaping in a silent gust to try to counteract the sheer torture of it, to steady himself—

He hadn't fully stood up when the slave driver kneed him in the side, sending him to the ground again in a spray of gravel.

Obi-Wan's elbow and palms burned from brand-new scrapes, his whole body shook, and his throat went absolutely dry.

_Don't say anything,_ he begged Anakin.  _Don't._

“If you can't keep up,” snarled his abuser, “I'll just kill you and the boy and be done with it.”  
Obi-Wan knew it to be true. He'd known it from the beginning.

This man hadn't caught them for profit, but because they had nearly stumbled into uncovering his business, and because of  _spite._

Yes, he could sell them, make a ridiculous amount for Jedi.

But it would be far wiser to kill them, and he'd proven he could.

_Don't touch Anakin._

Obi-Wan dragged himself up, standing on rock that he felt scrape against bone. He kept his chin down, gaze lowered as he stared at the man next in line—

It was only once the driver had moved toward the front of the line again that Obi-Wan realized he was staring vacantly at the other's ass. He hadn't seen an inch of it.

A tug at the chain told him they were moving again.

_For Anakin._

A step.

_Anakin._

Another.

He couldn't see. His face felt hot. His hands trembled. Sweat spilled down his bare back even though the day was edging towards cold on Wobani. His stomach churned, making him wonder if he would vomit as he walked.

He didn't want to.

Those behind him were miserable enough without having to walk through that.

So he clenched his teeth to hold it in.

_Anakin._

_Anakin._

_Anakin._

_Oh, Force, Anakin._

At least they hadn't done this to his  _child's_ feet. They could have done this to  _Anakin._ He was the one who'd been closest to succeeding in escaping, after all.

Every step he took on broken feet was one Anakin didn't have to.

Not all of the gravel remained on the ground when he lifted his leg.

Some of it never left his wounds.

He stumbled, hands from behind grabbed his bicep, then let go for fear of being seen.

It kept him on his feet, though.

_Thank you,_ he thought, terror making his gratitude sharp and bewildering. _Thank you._

The light in the sky eventually died, the column halted for the night, the long chain locked to a ring in the ground. The men who made their living in the blood of their fellow creatures camped a little distance away.

Obi-Wan simply fell to the ground, shuddering, unable to do more than drool into the unforgiving stone slab.

A wayside ring set into gravel would have been too easy to pull out.

Obi-Wan hadn't been able to appreciate the change for the last several steps, however, since he'd brought the gravel  _with_ him.

A hand gripped his forearm, and he tried to make his eyes focus enough to find out why.

Anakin crouched beside him, tears slipping down the dirty face.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought it was a safe mission. It was just a nonviolent land dispute. I never would have brought you if—_

Anakin was whispering something, but Obi-Wan couldn't hear him.

Seven days' trek on foot.

They'd completed two.

_If I don't last, they will_ kill  _Anakin._

They would start before dawn tomorrow, end after dusk.

If Anakin was  _here,_ that meant the other slaves had moved so he could loop back around. That was kind of them—

A small hand took hold of the top of his right foot and something  _touched_ one of the gravel bits embedded.

Obi-Wan shrieked and thrashed, both instinctive, as his brain went white.

The hand didn't let go, the stone was yanked, and then it was gone.

Obi-Wan trembled, keened when Anakin— it  _was_ Anakin, it was Anakin—

_Trying to help me—_

Another.

Another.

There wasn't a word for the sound Obi-Wan made. He could hear Anakin sniffing, his precious Padawan must be crying silently— he shouldn't be having to do this, he shouldn't—

“I have to get them out,” Anakin choked. “You have to walk tomorrow.”  
Obi-Wan tried not to fight him. Fought not to kick him.

“Shut him up or  _I'll come_ shut him up!” a voice roared from the camp.

Obi-Wan gaped at the stars, begging Qui-Gon for control, for  _silence—_

Someone tore a strip from his tattered leggings and stuffed it into his mouth.

Obi-Wan bit down, swallowing the groans as Anakin tried to unhook something that wasn't stone that had gotten caught. It tugged, and  _kept tugging._ Obi-Wan reared up, eyes wild, only to see Anakin had an honest-to-Force  _fishhook_ he was trying to detangle. 

It had done its fripping job alright. Gone in, come back out, and the barb was making the task of freeing it difficult.

Obi-Wan flopped back against the ground, hysterically thinking,  _I'm the bigger fish. You always said there was one. I—_

It could have been Anakin who stepped on the accursed thing.

It tore on the way out.

Obi-Wan nearly blacked out. Threw up instead.

A rough hand gripped his shoulder.

No one said what they all had to be thinking.

_I'm not going to make it out._

_And then either they keep Anakin, or kill him._

As Anakin continued in his brutal acts of mercy, Obi-Wan felt tears of despair slip from his eyes in the silent night.

 

* * *

 

Mace Windu would never forget the horror of that image.

Watching Obi-Wan stagger forward, Anakin on his back,  _running_ from a pursuit that was so close to catching them.

He would never be able to think of the sight of the bottoms of Obi-Wan's feet without feeling sick.

It was no wonder the young knight had collapsed in Windu's arms, losing consciousness the moment he saw backup arrive.

Young Skywalker looked infinitely old as he walked by their side, telling the inbound healer over comm what had been done to his master.

His voice held steady, he gave the exact information needed—

It was a good thing Plo Koon and Fisto were apprehending the slavers.

Mace was not at all sure he wouldn't utterly betray his vows and slaughter them for what had been done to these innocent children.

 

* * *

 

Anakin could lead the Jedi back to the hidden slaver base where other slaves waited.

There was no time to waste.

The child hadn't even protested having to leave his master's side for the purpose, and when they asked if they could find it with directions, Anakin had refused to risk it.

_I misjudged him._

Windu planned to go with the rescue party, but Anakin grabbed his hand, eyes haunted as Obi-Wan was loaded onto a transport.

“You'll go with him?” Anakin begged.

And Windu found he couldn't deny him, so he stayed by Obi-Wan's side the whole way back to Coruscant and the Halls of Healing.

He stayed near as the Healers called in the best of Coruscant's doctors to consult and assist.

Answered questions when he could, shook his head when he couldn't.

A decade later he would be just as stunned as when he first heard the news directly after all the surgeries were over that Obi-Wan Kenobi had not lost his feet.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan awoke for the first time since his rescue only minutes before Anakin reached him.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed as if he intended to get up and  _leave_ , and the healers raced in his direction crying out their protests—

But Obi-Wan didn't seem to see any of them.

Only Anakin, running towards him, arms outstretched, and then Obi-Wan had him locked tight in his embrace, cradling his head and body as it heaved with brokenhearted sobs.

The healers backed out of the room, and Mace did the same, closing the door behind him.

Some things weren't meant to be heard by others.

Obi-Wan Kenobi's broken voice whispering his grief and comfort into Anakin Skywalker's ear was one of those things.

 

* * *

 

“Master.”

Cody's General kept forward, his body shaking, limping—

“Obi-Wan.” Skywalker stepped into his brother's path, gripping him by the shoulders.

Glassy eyes raised to his, a bit slow.

Cody swallowed fear and bewilderment.

“We can stop for the night,” Skywalker said, voice quiet.

Kenobi shook his head. “I can keep going.”

“Master,” Skywalker whispered, “we're not there anymore. We can stop for the night.”

It might take them longer to reach the nearest long-range comm, but yes. Nothing was after them at the moment, unless you counted the bad luck which had crashed their transport three days away from the closest option to call for a pick up.

Kenobi's gaze cleared after a moment and he gave a weary nod.

Skywalker helped him sit down as the clones began to set up camp around them, then he loosened Kenobi's boots and pulled them off.

Cody watched, surprised by the fact that his General just allowed it.

Off came the socks, and then Cody stared in horror.

The General's feet were swollen, and as Skywalker lifted them to his lap, Cody caught a glimpse of vicious scarring underneath.

“Mention it, next time they start to hurt,” Skywalker pleaded.

Kenobi looked both sorrowful and regretful. “I didn't notice. It crept up on me.”

“I know, but please, try to pay attention. We don't have to let them get like this.”

Kenobi gave a small nod, wincing as Skywalker pulled a salve from his belt and began to massage it into the painful feet. Pain-glazed eyes found Cody's, and Kenobi offered up a wan smile. “Old injuries, Commander. Nothing to worry about.”

Skywalker scoffed, old grief and guilt in his face.

Kenobi reached forward, touched the back of his hand.

For a long moment they simply stared one another in the eye, and then Skywalker eased with a sigh.

“It can be difficult to tell when you've slipped into your endurance mode, and you can't communicate after you've hit that point,” Skywalker murmured. “I need you to be aware of your body and mind, and tell me if you think you're in danger of heading in that direction. We can decide then if we  _have_ to keep going, or if it's better to stop.”

Shame flooded Kenobi's face with crimson. “I can keep up.”

“We know you can,” Skywalker whispered. “But you don't  _have_ to. Not most of the time.” His metal hand caught Kenobi's, squeezed. “You don't have to. Trust me, please, to see the big picture when you can only see the next step in front of you.”

Kenobi gave a nod, head drooping. “I hate complaining.”

“You have an incredible skill, the ability to stop listening to your body and do what you have to do in spite of incredible pain. But let's save that skill for special occasions, okay?” The younger Jedi's voice wasn't quite steady.

“Alright,” Obi-Wan whispered back. “I'll try.”

He definitely wouldn't be trying alone, now that Cody knew what to look for.

 

 


End file.
